Obviously i think AS is a great game, nearly every day since released ive played on it at least once. Whilst playing on it though there are 2 downfalls i can think of to the game.

The first, a major one is player pushing/pulling. I really think this is an unnecessary feature. I know its meant to prevent grief play but it also has the opposite effect, especially when the maps corridors are at a nice size. As jaeger/sarge im a mid speed character, i will be on point shooting at aliens in front of us, someone will run straight through my character and then as i am running / shooting will end up wrapped around their char causing FF. Doing speed runs on Cargo without blowing barrels but running along ledge i have even nearly been thrown into the pit by someone running through me. It definately does more bad than good regarding player safety to themself and others.

Second is a minor but now there is no jump the game has been made more linear regarding close obstacle blocks. Blink is great for crossing big distances but landing bay for example at first hacking door, the roll would have been fantastic if at left door to jump over railing to other door. Diving through windows in their protected suits would have been good also.

That means creating your own server, if it truly has to be default that marine collision is disabled then it should be like counterstrike where you just run through them completely.

That thing where you character looks up into the air has to also be added to the list - i am always bottom right in cargo lift and it happens so many times forcefully breaking my aim taking away control from the player.

Ive accepted the upgrade, dispite the limited official maps its a good game and i like many others am addicted. It just could do with some minor tweaks, some little elements that i feel were core to the game shouldnt have been taken out but its just a minor.

No jump, no crouch, that superflous push/pull, too long pause when picking up stuff.
->
Player movement feels clumsy and less controlled, compared to the old swarm.

Camera position adds to that feeling of less control. Too close to have a real overview, and with all the effects when ppl are firing different weapons, it all becomes an uncontrollable mess all too easy.

I mean, yes, it all looks pretty, but what good is that for, if it just isn't the same fun playing, cos it doesn't give you the same feeling of being in control?

People not feeling like being in control will more likely fall into spray'n'pray mode, making things even messier.

And, talking about less control: mapping has become harder too.

Not meaning the difficulties of learning to use Hammer. Yes, Hammer is a pain in the unarmored butt, but so is the UnrealEd, and what I really mean is, the tilted camera made designing much harder, in principle, than it already was.
It is almost impossible to make the southern walls and edges look natural and still not have 'em obscure the view too much.

Can even be seen on the nice official maps: this way, it will always be a compromise between looks and playability. The general decision has been made in favor of looks, now mappers have to go even longer ways to not let the playability suffer, and still are ultimately doomed to fail in that task.
Guess what I mean is, I would like it if the MAPPER could decide the camera position.

And another thing that makes me fear for the future:

The game was released with a toolset, and with good documentation, to enable the community to easily build custom content.
A really nice move, I think, but still, it seems like something went wrong. The majority of players only play the official maps, and get bored after a few days. A lack of actual content can't be the reason, there is a number of fan-made maps out there already, some of them are really good.

I blame the experience system, and the non-intuitive methods needed to actually get custom content to run, but can't say I have a solution for this. (well, maybe I am just too puzzled over techniques that already worked in 1999, but seem technically impossible in 2010 )
Still, I feel that the stuff people sink work into should be better/more easily integrated somehow, or the game may become a one-summer-wonder.

/*rant mode off*/

As I said, I love the game, and will not stop being thankful for what the BCG folks have done. Just trying to word my feelings here. After more than 200h playtime I can safely say that the things I like are countless. But still, about some details and design decisions, I find them hard to stomach.

The original is better. But..... since the new Swarm came out I only played it one more time. And I did not play L4D/L4D2 and I did not play.... ANYTHING ELSE! (appart from drums and wife )

So, one can lament that B aint a clone of A. I am sure a few things can be changed by patches like they did before:
-Onslaugter "a totaly different experience!"
-Brutal "is it realy harder then insane?"
-Hardcore Friendly Fire "Yea, that's my swarm!"

AS LF pointed out, there is good content comming up. In a few weeks or month at least three playable/enjoyable campaigns will be available. Then it's time for Valve/BCG to make em official, allow them to collect XP for you and add a few achivements.

No one did realy think it will have as much gamers playing this game every day as on the release day plus following! Did you?

It's from Valve, it's free, ergo let's test it!

Remember, what is one of the reasons why the old swarm was not played from thousands of players (appart from it has not been released by valve)?

Right! It's to tough, new players leave frustrated and abandon it after a few tries.

The new game is for the casual player as well as for the pro-swarm player (Is that us? LOL ) It's sometimes fun to just play with random people, but serious fun is in the friends-only sessions.

Only a few % of this players will remain and play this for years. However, that will be way more then for the ut2k4 mod.
A few hundred per day would be good enough and I am sure that content from the community will keep coming UNTIL a better game comes out.

Jonathan Sutton: Yeah, thereís a great thread in our forum, the work in progress thread. If you look through that, thereís tons of screen shots of maps people are just starting to build, some of them are looking really good, Iím really looking forward to that. I remember with the old version of Alien Swarm, there was a custom mission I played that took seven hours. So Iím hoping someone steps up and makes a mission [like that].